Chapter 21

Justin Lu Residence.

Sandra had tried more than ten different sleeping postures and had made more than ten attempts to summon any drowsiness she thought she had in her, but sleep still eluded her.

Usually, she would fall asleep the moment she hit the pillow. But tonight, thoughts of Justin's bridal bearing preoccupied her mind.

The way his strong hands would feel when pressed against her skin, the warmth of his body, the heat of his firm pecs, the sharp contours of his handsome face ... Oh, it was like being back in his arms, reliving the same experience, seeing and feeling everything clearly. Her pulse began to race...

- Hey, you had left Justin's embrace a long time ago, okay! Stop it! Argh! she thought.

Usually Sandra had better self-control than this. But this time, stopping really seemed like a lost cause, so she got out of bed and left her room.

She needed a drink to calm down!

Sandra noticed Justin before she reached the bottom of the stairs. He was sitting in the living room and it looked like he was in the middle of a phone call. Sandra could slightly make out the sound of his deep voice. At that moment, that soft voice was filled with warmth and tenderness. Also, from the content of the conversation, it was not difficult for Sandra to guess that the person on the other end of the call was Beatrice Han.

Other than those few times they had been forced to perform, Justin had never spoken to her in such a soft voice before. In fact, she could find several times when his face clearly expressed his reluctance to converse with her.

She had always thought Justin was cold by nature. But it turned out that he was only cold to her by nature.

The warmth of his body, the sensation his touches had evoked in her, and the way he made her pulse race - all disappeared from Sandra's mind.

The flood that was bubbling up in Sandra's heart went to sleep, going from 100 to 0 degrees in an instant. Everything she felt in her heart miraculously stopped.

She breathed a sigh of relief before turning to go back to her room. She fell asleep shortly after.

When she woke up the next day, Sandra had forgotten everything about the night before. Instead, all of her attention was now focused on the tantalizing breakfast that had been presented to her. Today, they had her favorite dumplings again -.

Uncle Xu appeared with two copies of the morning paper. He handed a copy to Sandra.

- Young lady, there are reports of yesterday's incident. Would you like to take a look?

Sandra spread the paper in front of her. After a moment, she sniffed.

- The media is so good at making things up these days.

Shockingly, the headline was An Unexpected Turn of Events: Lu Justin puts his life on the line after his wife's kidnappers. Was there live coverage when Justin pursued the kidnappers? How else would they have known that Justin had put his own life in danger?

Sandra was still in the middle of her laughing fit when something else caught her attention. Under the headline was an article about Han Beatrice.

Sandra had never been a fan of entertainment, so even though Han Beatrice's popularity had surged throughout Asia, Sandra had only encountered two news articles about Han Beatrice.

Strangely, in both encounters, these articles were of the same content - the last time, it was a drunken Han Beatrice in tears. This time, the photo showed Han Beatrice wiping her tears at the foot of her building. The photo was taken in the middle of the night. Speculation was that her tears were caused by relationship problems.

"But that's unlikely, isn't it?" Sandra thought. Last night when she heard Justin talking on the phone, his voice was so warm and soft. Could it be that a fight broke out afterwards?

Sandra looked up and glanced at Justin. He didn't seem to have touched the paper at all and his face betrayed no hint of emotion or expression. Finally, Sandra decided to pass on her experiences to him.

- Every woman needs a little bit of chit-chat, you know. It doesn't matter if she's just a girl or if she's a queen, Sandra said it seriously.

Justin looked up.

- Is that your point?

Sandra set the paper down in front of Justin and pointed to the picture of Han Beatrice, which had taken up an entire page.

- A little cajoling and chit-chat would have done the trick. Why involve the press? Don't you know how damaging that is to his reputation?

Justin put down his chopsticks. A cold smile graced his features.

- Who told you that all women need to be talked to nicely?

- Jiang Nino, of course! "That's something he had learned from his ex-girlfriends. Looks like I won't even get a thank you after passing it on to you,

Sandra said frankly.

"Clack -"

A piercing scream rang out as Justin abruptly stood up. His movements pushed back the stool he was sitting on. He turned and left before Sandra could catch a glimpse of his face. His dumplings were left completely intact.

- Hey, aren't you going to eat?

Sandra's voice came out in a desperate tone. But Justin kept walking without even a backward glance. What surprised him was that there was no anger in Sandra after reading the article.

- Oh, so he's going to start talking softly so soon? Huh. I guess the lesson isn't lost on him after all!

Satisfied and pleased with herself, Sandra took her hand from the bamboo steamer that held Justin's untouched dumplings. She pulled the entire tray toward her and began to eat.

At the door, a disgruntled Justin stopped his steps.

He remembered the desperation in her voice when she called him earlier. Could it be that she was worried about him skipping breakfast?

Feeling lucky, a certain someone turned around and walked away. But at the sight of Sandra wolfing down her dumplings, Justin felt reality hit him squarely in the face: Sandra didn't give two hoots whether he ate breakfast or not. All she cared about was her dumplings!

Justin gritted his teeth.

"That tactless wretch! " he thought.

Uncle Xu didn't even have to look at Justin to know he was smoking out of his head. Feeling troubled, Uncle Xu approached Sandra.

- Young Madam, actually Young Master and Miss Han ...

- Ah. "Sandra waved it off.

- You don't have to tell me how much they are in love with each other. I understand perfectly.

Uncle Xu sighed.

"Actually, I'd rather you knew less. " Even if she knew a little less, the young master wouldn't have been so angry.

Sandra didn't understand what Uncle Xu said at all. For the moment, she just assumed that Uncle Xu was mumbling to himself. Fortunately, she went back to devouring the dumplings.

Sandra went to the police station after breakfast. The city had been peaceful recently and there had been no homicide cases. So, bored Sandra was sitting in front of her computer, randomly surfing the web.

All of a sudden, she received a URL for Elisa from a well-established forum site.

She copied the URL and accessed the forum. This led her to a thread posted this morning. In any case, it had already received nearly ten thousand replies.

The thread titled OP wants to doxx this mystery woman who made our goddess cry - Lu Justin's newlywed wife.

The OP, whose username was I Love You Queen Beatrice, was an Internet user from City A and clearly a die-hard Han Beatrice fan. Undoubtedly, the OP was upset that Han Beatrice had made him bawl his eyes out like a child, twice. The OP also came to the conclusion that the culprit who had reduced Queen Beatrice to such a state was none other than the mysterious wife of Lu Justin.

I love you Queen Beatrice, therefore, had appealed to the Internet to have them blow up the identity of Lu Justin's wife. It was a form of payback for everything that was done to Han Beatrice. The OP already had several pieces of background information on this:

1 ) Lu Justin's new wife was a citizen of City A;

2 ) Her occupation was special;

3 ) She had previously been a student at Columbia University in the United States. Well, since she had shown her face at last night's event, it meant that her identity had already been made known to a good number of people. All things considered, the search would not be difficult...

All of this proved that Han Beatrice had a staggering number of fans. Plus, with all the information I Love You Queen Beatrice had gathered, more fans were now joining the search mission. Sometimes there would be "Search and Privacy Violation is Illegal" reminders, but these quickly fell by the wayside as posts from other users and I Love You Queen Beatrice flooded the forum.

There were nearly ten thousand responses, 90% of which were to the OP. Eighty-five percent had joined the research mission.

Sandra received another text from an anxious Elisa: Sandra, you are in danger! Do you want to go abroad to hide or something?

Sandra lay down. And she typed a reply: Which one do you think is scarier? Dead bodies? Or hordes of internet users?

After weighing one option against the other, Elisa answered: Corpses are scarier.

To which Sandra replied: Okay, I'm going to look at some corpses now.

The silent implication was that if even corpses couldn't scare her, then these internets meant nothing.

Elisa responded with a long sequence of ellipses and exclamation points. She wanted to convey the admiration and fear she felt for Sandra.

Sandra was unusually calm in the face of all that was - dead bodies and what not, she really didn't care.

Then her phone rang. It was an incoming call from Tang Abelia.

- Auntie!

- Sandra! " Tang Abelia sounded annoyed and agitated.

- Such an important incident…

why didn't you tell me about what happened last night? If I hadn't seen the morning papers, I'd have no idea you were kidnapped. How are you doing? Are you hurt?

The old lady's ramblings had overwhelmed Sandra a bit. Then again, the concern behind the old lady's voice was not lost on Sandra. It evoked a feeling in her that was deep and ... elusive. It felt a lot like warmth.

Sandra smiled.

- Auntie, I'm fine. I'm practically half a cop, remember? I wouldn't go down that easy.

- I'm still worried. I should go down to the police station and see you.

Tang Abelia seemed very insistent.

It wasn't that Sandra didn't welcome Abelia's presence at the station. Just that she had no way to explain her relationship with this status lady to her colleagues. Sandra thought for a moment.

- Auntie, I'm really okay. You don't have to come just to see me. Tomorrow is the weekend, so I don't have to work overtime. Why don't I come to see you?

At this moment, Tang Abelia realized that her hasty visit to the police station might interfere with Sandra's work. She nodded her head.

- That's fine too. I'll wait for you at home, then!

- Okay.

When Sandra ended the call, a happy smile graced her lips.

She hadn't experienced motherly love since she was 15 years old. But Tang Abelia's words and actions brought back the feeling of being loved and cared for by a mother. For Sandra, this feeling was a long time coming. Also, aside from this secret reason, Tang Abelia was the other reason she had agreed to this marriage with Justin.

Sandra loved this interesting and optimistic old lady. She would like to treat her like her mother.

Now that she had plans for the weekend, Sandra was in an unusually good mood. After breakfast the next day, she grabbed the tea leaves she had bought yesterday and was about to leave the house.

Justin noticed Sandra's cheerful mood. So when she was about to leave, he called her.

- Where are you going?

- I'm going to see my aunt.

Suddenly, Sandra remembered that the man standing in front of her was none other than Aunt Tang's son. - Do you want to go together? If we go together, Aunt Tang might be very happy!

She looked at him, blinking her eyes. It was as if the entire weight of her anticipation rested on her fluttering eyelashes.

For a moment, Justin was thrown into a daze. What Sandra had said was true. He never thought that Sandra, a woman who always acted as if she had not one care in the world, would possess such a strong sense of filial piety. Even more surprising was the fact that the object of Sandra's filial piety was her own mother.

Sandra thought she detected some hesitation on Justin's part. So she looked at him again, her peach blossom eyes widening.

- What's there to hesitate about when it's your own mother you're going to see? What an unaffiliated son!

- ...

The corner of Justin's lips twitched.

- Very well. Don't go away.

Sandra turned and started to walk out.

- I'll go alone.

Justin reached out and clasped Sandra's hand in his. Then, after grabbing his car keys, he led her out the door. In the depths of his eyes, displeasure still lurked.

- Who said I wasn't going?

In truth, Julien Coll had invited her to a round of golf in the suburbs today.

Sandra smiles.

-I knew it! Our big brother Justin wouldn't be the non-subsidiary type.

Justin was speechless.

Sandra glanced down at her own hand, the one clasped by Justin. Inadvertently, a small smile formed on her lips.

Hand in hand, Sandra and Justin were on their way to visit Tang Abelia. It was something Sandra hadn't even dared to imagine in the past, yet right now it was happening in full swing. It was as if a palette of colors had suddenly opened up, painting the road in front of them with vibrant hues. At that moment, there was a sense of satisfaction in every corner of her heart.

She felt a sudden urge to shout to her dead mother: at least in this very moment, she was happy and content.

Just for this moment alone, she was ready to weather any storm.